GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• The DOE will open a new school on the Upper West Side, but residents say the plan isn’t good enough.
• The State Assembly re-elected six members to the Board of Regents.
• Could a recession-driven exodus from private to public school reshape the face of public education?
• Chaz explains what the “just cause” and “arbitrary and capricious” standards for firing teachers mean.
• The AFL-CIO is coming out in support of the teachers who were fired in Central Falls, RI.
• Mass Insight’s Justin Cohen says that simply firing all of a school’s teachers is not a turnaround strategy.
• EdWeek imagines emails to RttT finalists and losers. (Finalists are urged to recruit Oprah to the cause.)
• Kindergarten isn’t mandatory in New York State. It’s still probably a good idea, though, says Ask Judy.
• Ed in the Apple writes an open letter to the Congressional Black Caucus arguing against school closure.
• The panel at Morning Joe takes Arne Duncan to task, just a bit, for being too moderate on teachers unions.
• And Duncan foreshadows a Race to the Top competition for early childhood education.
• Draft national standards for K-12 are due out for public comment next week.
• And happy birthday, Dr. Seuss! Mimi takes lessons from the good doctor and thinks Duncan should, too.

School districts should abandon lay-off policies that require principals to dismiss the newest teachers first and instead incorporate measures of teacher quality into firing decisions, a new report out today from The New Teacher Project argues.

The report proposes a scorecard that would rank teachers, weighing their classroom management skills, attendance, performance evaluations and length of service to the district to determine who should be laid off. Under the group’s proposal, a teacher’s performance rating would be given the most weight, while his or her number of years served would count for only a tenth of their score.

By doing so, the report argues, school districts can avoid laying off their best teachers who may not have worked in the system the longest. (more…)

More than a month after the citywide school board voted to close 19 schools, City Council and Comptroller John Liu are reexamining the criteria that city officials used to declare the schools failures.

Liu, who campaigned for comptroller on the promise of auditing the Department of Education’s data, announced today that his office is beginning an investigation of the DOE’s progress reports — the annual report cards that assign each school a letter grade, largely based on students’ test scores. Later this afternoon, the City Council’s education committee held a hearing where members accused department officials of targeting large, struggling high schools without considering what would become of their current students. Department officials defended the schools they chose to close, citing the schools’ abysmal graduation rate.

“This is not a random list,” said Deputy Chancellor for Strategy and Innovation, John White. “These are the lowest performers even considered among a set of schools where students are not achieving at acceptable levels.” (more…)

Diane Ravitch offered a first look at her new book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” at a GothamSchools event in December where she explained that seeing education theories play out in reality caused her to change her mind about standardized testing, school choice, and the entire notion of “accountability.”

Today, the book officially hit shelves, after receiving a spate of favorable reviews in major newspapers. People who have been following Ravitch’s transformation in recent years will find much of her argument familiar. Still, her book offers those who are new to the story a 240-page primer on major trends in education policy — trends that Ravitch says are undermining the country’s once-great schools.

While the book contains Ravitch’s take on New York City’s recent education history — hint: she’s not positive — it is by no means solely about New York. Ravitch also weaves tales from San Diego and Washington, D.C, where activist superintendents have pushed aggressive changes, into a big picture about the general direction of American education. New Yorkers did play a special role in helping Ravitch prepare the book for publication: Diana Senechal, a city teacher who has contributed to GothamSchools, was her research assistant.

Visit the community section to read an exclusive excerpt from the book, in which Ravitch describes why her favorite high school teacher wouldn’t succeed in today’s data-driven teaching environment. Also, Queens teacher Arthur Goldstein, who received an advance copy, offers a glowing endorsement.

I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of Diane Ravitch’s new book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System.” It is, frankly, a revelation, and anyone interested in education, particularly New York City education, needs to read it right now.

For anyone who’s wondered where on earth Joel Klein dreamed up his “reforms,” look no further. A substantial source of inspiration appears to be a three-stage process — a New York City experiment that gave a false impression of success, a San Diego experiment that eluded success altogether, and a stubborn determination to replicate both in overdrive.

As both Bloomberg and Klein were business experts using business models, they used a “corporate model of tightly centralized, hierarchal, top-down control, with all decisions made at Tweed and strict supervision of every classroom to make sure the orders flowing from headquarters were precisely implemented,” Ravitch writes. It appears they didn’t squander their valuable time on troublesome input from teachers, parents, or any contradictory voices whatsoever. In fact, Ravitch points out that though the mayor had promised increased parental involvement, it was actually reduced. Parent coordinators were hired, but in fact, they actually “worked for the principal, not for parents.” (more…)

Education historian Diane Ravitch’s new book, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” comes out this week. This exclusive excerpt is from Chapter 9, “What Would Mrs. Ratliff Do?”

My favorite teacher was Mrs. Ruby Ratliff. She is the teacher I remember best, the one who influenced me most, who taught me to love literature and to write with careful attention to grammar and syntax. More than fifty years ago, she was my homeroom teacher at San Jacinto High School in Houston, and I was lucky enough to get into her English class as a senior.

Mrs. Ratliff was gruff and demanding. She did not tolerate foolishness or disruptions. She had a great reputation among students. When it came time each semester to sign up for classes, there was always a long line outside her door. What I remember most about her was what she taught us. We studied the greatest writers of the English language, not their long writings like novels (no time for that), but their poems and essays. We read Shakespeare, Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, Milton, and other major English writers. Now, many years later, in times of stress or sadness, I still turn to poems that I first read in Mrs. Ratliff’s class.

Mrs. Ratliff did nothing for our self-esteem. She challenged us to meet her exacting standards. I think she imagined herself bringing enlightenment to the barbarians (that was us). When you wrote something for her class, which happened with frequency, you paid close attention to proper English. Accuracy mattered. She had a red pen and she used it freely. Still, she was always sure to make a comment that encouraged us to do a better job. Clearly she had multiple goals for her students, beyond teaching literature and grammar. She was also teaching about character and personal responsibility. These are not the sorts of things that appear on any standardized test. (more…)

Here’s a sign that our reporting on a grade-changing scandal and the intense pressure on schools to perform or shut down have entered the public consciousness: Law & Order used the storyline last night.

Returning to NBC’s 10 pm spot, the series debuted “Boy on Fire” last night, a story that (judging by the sudden flood of emails I got) seemed to strike a chord with the city’s public school teachers. I didn’t catch the episode, but those who did report that it bore some similarities to the case of grade-changing at Herbert Lehman High School in the Bronx, where the executive principal who was hired with a $25,000 bonus  is still under investigation for changing grades in order to boost the school’s graduation rate. (more…)

• Despite new initiatives, the DOE still does not make data about bullying available. (Gotham Gazette)
• The city launched a new school violence hotline yesterday. (NY1)
• Spending on Metrocards is lower and more efficient than the $1 billion spent annually on buses. (Post)
• Three East Village schools are the first in the city to ditch meat in some of their school lunches. (NY1)
• Experts say homelessness among city students is on the rise. (Columbia Spectator)
• President Obama backed the Central Falls mass firing and other turnaround efforts. (Times, AP)